BAR & Button in Breach and Busted...

[Exsanguinator]

Running underweight - points taken off - poor lad...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/4514569.stm

[kenny]

As a F1 fan i have to sympithize with B.A.R. But they know the rules or so they thought. I don't think this setback for them would make any difference to the outcome of the championship.
Alonso to be champion well before the end of the season. As he is staying with Renault till the end of 2006 at least he has a very bright future ahead of him.

[Silver]

I think is sucks that the penalty hasn't been lowered as the appeal was successful in that they believed that it was a misunderstanding and not a deliberate attempt to cheat.

They should of course be penalised, but if you get convicted of a lesser crime you don't receive the full sentence. They should have taken the points off them for that race but lifted the ban in my opinion. And poor Sato, he did nothing wrong!

Totally over the top, I know they have to show that they won't tolerate cheating and rightly so but after the appeal they officially were not cheating so in my opinion, too harsh!

[Exsanguinator]

I think most of it is politic anyway...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/4529603.stm

[ May 11, 2005, 07:44 AM: Message edited by: Exsanguinator ]

[Goth Girl]

Things might get worse for them... the FIA is considering penalising them further for all their comments... 'bringing the sport into disrepute, yadda yadda'.

Apparently the general consensus in the F1 paddock is that the punishment wasn't harsh enough!

[Silver]

Looks like my information was wrong then, the Metro paper on the bus to work was wrong, it said that they had appealled and they won the appeal.

How odd!

[Exsanguinator]

The FIA Court of Appeal said that the FIA's accusations of fraud and deception were without grounds but BAR broke the rules and the chastisment stood... BAR were going to appeal this but decided against it.

So to sum up - there was an appeal at the Court of Appeal which BAR was going to appeal against but decided their prospects were unappealing.

Glad that's cleared up! tongue.gif

[Silver]

OK that has cleared it up, the Metro paper was very unclear about it as it didn't mention half of that. Still think it sucks for Sato though, and Button, as the driver I don't think he'll have known all the ins and outs of what they did to car.

[Rixy]

Apparently because of certain comments made to the press after the appeal the FIA are now pushing for harsher penalties against the team. This could include being kicked out of the season completely.

Honda made the unusual step of publicly slamming the FIA, saying that Honda and BAR are honourable organisations and would not deliberatly cheat.

Supposedly a number of big name teams made some changes to their fuel tank setups just before last weekends GP.

[Exsanguinator]

Since Honda are at the forefront of pushing for a seperate tournament after 2007 I think part of it all is the FIA saying to them all, 'play ball or we'll make life hard for you...'

Let's face its par for the course to say how harshly you've been treated when things don't go your way - last thing they need is to give themselves (and by extension their sponsers) a abd name. So the FIA saying they want a harsher sentence is just politics, at least that's what I reckon...

Of course if it was concluded that they were cheating then the FIA is well within the agreement to disqualify them completely... Whatever the changes were the other teams made it sounds like most of them are hypocrites in hindsight - either that or they're just gloating that they changed just in time!

[Goth Girl]

I am getting so tired of the red tape that has been surrounding this season so far.

Of course I'm also just tired right now...